We are losing the caring and sharing

May 14, 2003 — 10.00am

In the 1980s, Australians clamoured for tax cuts. They regularly told pollsters that given the choice between tax cuts or increased government spending on public services, they wanted more money in their pockets.

By the end of the 1990s, after a decade of radical economic reform, the mood appeared to have shifted.

The latest Australian Electoral Survey, based on the mood in 2001, showed a large majority, given the same choice, wanted more spending on services.

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But neither the Howard Government nor the Crean Opposition dares to believe Australians are serious, even though the research also shows the average punter has not gone soft-headed and socialist.

People don't particularly want the Government to spend more money on unemployed people or single mothers. But they do want more money spent on education and health.

Instead Australians will get a little more in their pockets through a $10.7 billion tax cut over four years. They will also get radical changes to health and education, which in the end will make them more expensive and less accessible to the less well-off.

Over the past 30 years, Australia has become richer but more unequal. And Australians have become more entrepreneurial but more insecure.

First, the reforming Labor governments, and now the Coalition, have shifted more of the risk of daily living onto individuals.

Australians must take greater responsibility for their health through private health insurance while public hospitals and Medicare are run down.

They must prepare for their own retirement through superannuation, amid threats about tomorrow's pension even though most of today's pre-retirees never had the time to save enough. They must pay their children's university costs through upfront fees, if they can, when their grades aren't good enough.

Unemployed people - not the labour market - are seen as deficient and in need of help to improve their attitude, and job-searching skills.

The responsibility for being unemployed has been placed on the shoulders of individuals even though full-time jobs have hardly increased, and have decreased for the low-skilled over the past 15 years.

Yesterday's budget continues the trend to turning Australia into a less caring and sharing society, into a country of individuals, some of whom are much better equipped than others to bear the new risks.

It speeds us towards a less egalitarian future where well-heeled retired couples on incomes of $80,000, and bearing the Commonwealth Seniors' Card, may get access to free GP services, but battler families with sick kids will pay through the nose.

It speeds us towards a time when rich kids will sideline brighter aspirants from university because their parents can afford to pay full fees. The rich have already fled the underfunded public school system.

There is nothing more basic and important to a country's sense of itself as fair and egalitarian than its education and health-care systems .

People are getting a bit more money in their pocket. But it brings added risks. They can only hope it is enough to get by in user-pays Australia.